My first memory of this search goes back about fifteen years when I asked Ismael, a young Muslim with stars in his eyes, who wanted to become an Imam, how he could accept the violence of the Muslim fanatics as part of his religion. His answer was one simple sentence: "That is not religion, that is politics." He said it with the utmost conviction.

Over recent years, the media and sensational world events have promoted the idea that in Islam, politics has become the religion and the religion has become politics. Recently, in an erudite essay that was sent as an e-mail all over the world, Professor Moshe Sharon, who teaches Islamic History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told us that there was no possibility of peace in the Israel/Palestine conflict. In his essay, The Agenda of Islam & A War Between Civilizations, he said that Muslims would never accept Israeli rule, neither would they tolerate Israel's occupation of any part of the territory in dispute. There would be war forever. Peace could only come if and when all the Israelis had been killed by the Muslims. It was a very powerful and depressing message.

But then, synchronistically perhaps, at about the same time, a fascinating article on Tunisia, described as "the most stable and competitive country in Africa", appeared in the March 2004 edition of the monthly magazine, The Middle East, published in London. One section, called "The Real Meaning of Islam", was presented as the official Tunisian point of view. It gave my search a completely new insight and a quite differentunderstandingof the meaning of Islam as accepted by an Islamiccountry. It confirmed that the Koran could be read and interpreted in many different ways.

This in-depth article on Tunisia and on the country's amazing President Ben Ali, tells us how the Tunisian people have advanced in recent years by following what they claim to be the REAL Islamic principles. The way the article spelt it out, revived a feeling of hope for the future.

The constitution and the legal system are secular but the official religion is Islam. Right from the time of its independence in 1956, the country's leadership stressed education for boys and girls, as demanded by Islam. The result is that Tunisia has one of the world's highest literacy rates. The Islamic injunctions on the rights and high status of women over-rode cultural and traditional mores on gender and today Tunisian women enjoy greater equality in the professions and earnings than in many Western countries. Islam's insistence on an egalitarian society and the right of individuals to improve their living standards has resulted in one of the highest per capita incomes in the developing world, almost 80% home ownership and one of the lowest poverty levels in the world.

There are few better examples of the living proof of the Islamic spirit of respect for other religions and races than Tunisia. People of different ethnic backgrounds have lived together so intimately and so easily that, when you are in Tunisia, even the idea of looking at people's colour seems as preposterous as grouping people according to height or weight.

Equally preposterous is the idea of cordoning people according to their faiths. Islam demands respect for all religions. There is a very sizeable community of Jews who have lived happily and prosperously in Tunisia for hundreds of years. The El Ghriba synagogue in Jerba is one of the most important Jewish shrines and thousands of Jews from all over the world attend annual celebrations Lag be Omer.

Seeking after knowledge, progressing, working hard for yourself and your community, equality of the sexes, justice before the law, respect for other faiths and creeds, helping the poor and always striving to do good are all part of the letter and spirit of Islam. This is not 'moderate' Islam as it is sometimes erroneously labelled. It is Islam pure and simple.

Therefore, that Tunisia is modern, progressive, prosperous, at peace with its neighbours and itself and Islamic is not a contradiction of terms. Tunisians will tell you that it is because they have remained true to the real spirit of Islam that other boons have followed.

This is an important distinction to make - especially in the West where a distorted view of Islam, based on the activities of a few who also claim to be Muslims, has sometimes reached dangerous proportions and in fact, has provided the so-called 'fundamentalists' with a significance and size well out of proportion to their real, minute dimensions.

Home grown democracy There is another, unfortunately widely held misconception in the West that for some reason or the other, Islam and democracy do not mix. This is the opposite of the true state of affairs. Everything in Islam promotes the ideal of democracy - from the concept of the ummah, the duties of elected officials, taxation, social welfare, a fluid legislation, checks and balances and the protection of human rights. Autocratic rule is un-Islamic.

Tunisia is a model Arab and Muslim state and it is where most other countries in the region want to reach. Its continued success is proof the Islam and modernity go hand in hand. .... [After President Bourghiba's initial success came anarchy and internal terrorism as he aged and became senile. Then] Zine El Abdine Ben Ali, a young man with a background in diplomacy and national security, and untainted by association with the old fractious political parties, was invited to take over the national leadership.

The Ben Ali Era His first actin power was to stop the squabbling by inviting all Tunisian factions, including those in exile, to come around and together hammer out a new national blueprint.

The core of the blueprint was rapid economic growth based on the country's human resources and an equitable sharing of the national wealth, national unity of purpose and revitalizing Tunisia's rich cultural legacy.

The threat of internal terrorism has now practically disappeared, thanks to rapidly rising living standards, the spread of education, the emancipation of women and the active projection of the true nature of Islam.

Terrorism thrives in poverty, ignorance, superstition and fear; remove these, Ben Ali argues, and drain the swamps in which it breeds. ..."

To this extract on Tunisia, I am adding some ideas about Islam that also come from the Middle East, this time from Turkey, where a remarkable and difficult work of over a thousand pages, was revealed in the 1980s. It is called The Knowledge Book and provides some more alternative food for thought about Islam, but from a future perspective.

For those of you who haven't come across The Knowledge Book yet, this may be the moment to make its acquaintance. It has been around in many countries since the 1980s and has already been translated into more than twenty languages. The website address is www.dkb-mevlana.org.tr

My own association with 'The Knowledge Book' is a long story - suffice it to say that after working with it for a few years and finding it quite difficult in parts, I asked the organisation in Turkey for permission to write a story in which some of its ideas could be introduced to a group of enthusiastic fourteen-year olds who wished to change the world.

The teenagers in the story, all great friends and classmates from different races and religions, experienced serious conflict for the first time in their liveswhen a traumatic shooting and killing in a nearby school triggered a religious conflict that demonstrated to them what had happened over the centuries to humanity & how religious conflicts could destroy friendships and eventually lead to war. Under the guidance of two teachers, they found the solutions to their differences in The Knowledge Book.

An important point of agreement was a new understanding of the purpose of the real Islam, which was that each individual on Earth should endeavour to become a Genuine Human Being. The Knowledge Book taught them how to achieve this spiritual goal and emphasised that all the revealed Sacred books that have been with humanity for thousands of years, were supposed to unite us, not to divide us; to teach us tolerance and love, not fear, murder and hatred. The Knowledge Book entreated these young people to keep their respective religions, but to go beyond religion and find the unity there. They were fascinated to find explanations of humanity's misunderstandings and misinterpretations of the Sacred Books in their studies.

The young and eager teenagers eventually confront five religious leaders with their new ideas: an Imam, a Rabbi, a Catholic Priest, a Methodist Minister and a Charismatic Pastor. After explaining to the clergy what they have come to accept as their new belief system beyond religion, with some guidance from two teachers, the youngsters ask the clergy for support as their parents and other grown-ups won't listen to them. Instead they tell them to keep quiet and to listen to their elders. They finally convince the clergy, which marks the beginning of their quest to change humanity and to change the world.

This evening, I read for the first time on FR, "The Agenda of Islam: A War Between Civilizations" by Professor Moshe Sharon which was posted by Happy2BMe on another thread ("Johnson's Killer Just Killed"). I did a google search on the author and the article, and found it at another site called Global Village News and Resources. GVNR appears to be humanist in nature and focuses on positive thinking. Not really my type of place, but another article appeared there that peaked my attention. It was this one. It paints a totally different perspective of Islam... an Islam which is peaceful with Jews and Christians and which is successful where it is allowed to rule. I'd appreciate comments by you history or current events buffs out there.

"In blasphemy indeed are those that say Allah is Christ the Son of Mary." - Sura (chapter) 5:17 of the Koran

"They do blaspheme who say: Allah is one of three in a Trinity: for there is no god except One Allah." Sura 5:73(Sura means chapter)

Which would explain why the "Prophet" Muhammad said: "O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for friends." - [al-Ma'idah 5:51.11]

"Muslims can build a democratic society provided they treat Islam as a matter of personal, private belief and not as a political ideology that seeks to monopolize the pubic space and regulate every aspect of individual and community life." - Amir Taheri ( Iranian newspaper editor)

"Muslims do not need patronizing liberals to meet them halfway; Muslims need to write an honest biography of the prophet that does not shun the truth, least of all cover it up with the dishonest subterfuge of condescending western scholars" -Ibn Warraq Author of; "Why I Am Not A Muslim", "Studies on Muhammed", and the "Rise of Islam". ( Warraq is an Arab.)

There are few better examples of the living proof of the Islamic spirit of respect for other religions and races than Tunisia... Islam demands respect for all religions.

I would say the problem in a nutshell "is that there are few better examples of Islamic respect for others than Tunesia"!

This article is a great example of an man looking far and wide for a bucket to hide his head in. When you have to ignore a world wide Jihad that is slaughtering innocent people globally, to 'find the real meaning of Islam', in some backwater in Tunisia, while obviously ignoring the newspaper on your doorstep, (quick question, do you even know where Tunisia is?), all the while ignoring the obvious places to look, like the Qu'ran, the statements of the Imams as to 'what true Islam is', the blood and gore in New York, and Israel, it becomes clear that some people are sheeple groomed for the slaughter.

And yes, Moslems eat lamb.

To ignore the 99% and embrace the 1% is the ability to immerse oneself in the lie and to ignore the truth. It is delusional, disingenuous and traitorous to cry that the fire in the theater is all illusion, sit back in your seats just because you are afraid of burning to death.

9
posted on 06/19/2004 2:18:21 AM PDT
by American in Israel
(A wise man's heart directs him to the right, but the foolish mans heart directs him toward the left.)

-Muslims are to "arrest them, besiege them and lie in ambush everywhere" (Sura 9:5) for them.

-They are to "seize them and put them to death wherever you find them, kill them wherever you find them, seek out the enemies of Islam relentlessly" (Sura 4:90).

-"Fight them until Islam reigns supreme" (Sura 2:193).

"Cut off their heads, and cut off the tips of their fingers" (Sura 8:12).

- If a Muslim does not go to war, Allah will kill him (Sura 9:39). He is to be told, "the heat of war is fierce, but more fierce is the heat of Hell-fire" (Sura 9:81).

- A Muslim must "fight for the cause of Allah with the devotion due to him" (Sura 22:78)

- Muslims must make war on the infidels (unbelievers) who live around them (Sura 9:123).

- Muslims are to be "ruthless to unbelievers" (Sura 48:29).

- A Muslim should "enjoy the good things" he has gained by fighting (Sura 8:69).

- A Muslim can kill any person he wishes if it be a "just cause" (Sura 6:152).

- Allah loves those who "fight for his cause" (Sura 61:3). Anyone who fights against Allah or renounces Islam in favor of another religion shall be "put to death or crucified or have their hands and feet cut off alternative sides" (Sura 5:34).

- Slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush. (Koran 9:5)

- ( the unbeliever)"Take him and fetter him and expose him to hell fire." (Koran 69:30-37)

- I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers, Smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger tips of them. (Koran 8:12)

- They should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides. (Koran 5:33) - "Know that paradise is under the shades of swords." - Sahih al-Bukhari Vol 4 p55

And as for treatment of women:

"Men are the maintainers of women because Allah has made some of them to excel others and because they spend out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping places and beat them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely Allah is High, Great. - Koran, Surah IV: 34, "The Women."

ISLAM- The Religion of BIGOTRY, MISOGENY, AND HATRED; and the words of their "Prophet" Muhammad confirm it.

"...In the famous battles of early Islam, with the Prophet personally in command of the army of believers, the heads of enemy generals and soldiers were often cut off and put on sticks to be shown around villages and towns as a warning to potential adversaries.

In 680 [A.D.], the Prophet's favorite grandson, Hussein bin Ali, had his head chopped off in Karbala, central Iraq, by the soldiers of the Caliph Yazid. The severed head was put on a silver platter and sent to Damascus, Yazid's capital, before being sent further to Cairo for inspection by the Governor of Egypt. The Caliph's soldiers also cut off the heads of all of Hussein's 71 male companions, including the one-year-old baby boy Ali-Asghar.

Islamic history is full of chopped heads being sent around by special delivery to reassure rulers, to terrorize foes and to impress the common folk. In 1821, the Qajar king of Persia ordered a week of celebrations when he received the severed head of a Russian general who had been captured in a battle near Baku. In 1842, the Afghans massacred the British garrison in Kabul, a total of 2,000 men and their wives and children, chopping off their heads and putting them on sticks to decorate the city. (They allowed one man to leave to report to the British.)

In 1885, it was the turn of British Gen. Gordon to have his head chopped off and put on a stick in Khartoum after it had fallen to the forces of the Mahdi. Slightly later, Mullah Hassan, the Somali rebel known to the British as "the mad mullah" but to his fanatical supporters as "the Shah," made a habit of chopping Western heads in what is now Somalia. At one point he had a large collection of severed Italian and British heads.

Iran's Khomeinist mullahs also love severed heads. In April 1980, Ayatollah Sadeq Khalkhali wanted to cut off the heads of eight American soldiers who had died in a failed hostage rescue mission in the Iranian desert. He was prevented from doing so thanks to a last minute intervention by the Swiss government. In 1986, the Khomeinist mullahs cut off the head of William Buckley, the CIA's Beirut station chief who had been kidnapped by the Hezbollah and sent to Tehran for interrogation.

And in 1992, the mullahs sent a "specialist" to cut off the head of Shapour Bakhtiar, the shah's last prime minister, in a suburb of Paris. When the news broke, Hashemi Rafsanjani, then president of the Islamic Republic, publicly thanked Allah for having allowed "the severing of the head of the snake."

In 1993, Fereidun Farrokhzad, one of Iran's most famous pop stars, had his head chopped off in Germany by a Khomeinist hit squad after the mullahs issued a fatwa for his murder.

Chopping off heads was widely practiced throughout the Afghan wars of the 1980s. An estimated 3,000 Soviet soldiers, many of them Muslims, had their heads cut off by the Mujahedeen, who at the time enjoyed U.S. and other Western support. (In other cases the Mujahedeen cut off the testicles of the Soviet soldiers and fed them to other Soviet prisoners.)

Needless to say, rival Mujahedeen also chopped off each other's heads. The group led by one Haji Akbari was especially notorious in that respect. One of its members was Osama bin Laden.

Throughout the 1990s, head-chopping was routinely carried out by the Army for Islamic Salvation (AIS), the Islamic Armed Group (GIA), the Salafi Group for Preaching and Armed Jihad (GSPAJ) and other Islamist terror outfits.

One Algerian specialist in slitting throats and cutting off heads was known as Momo le Nain (Muhammad the Midget). He was a 20-plus-year-old butcher's apprentice recruited by the GIA for the purpose of cutting off people's heads.

In 1996 in Ben-Talha, a suburb of the capital Algiers, Momo cut off a record 86 heads in one night, including the heads of more than a dozen children.

In recognition of his exemplary act of piety, the GIA sent him to Mecca for pilgrimage. Last time we checked, Momo was still at large somewhere in Algeria.

Four years ago, Iran was shocked by the murder of the well-known dissident leader Dariush Foruhar and his wife Parvaneh. The couple, in their 70s, had their heads chopped off and displayed on their mantelpiece. The regime blamed "rogue elements" within its Ministry for Intelligence and Security. But no one was punished.

Cutting heads is frequently practiced against clerics from non-Islamic faiths or even rival Islamic sects. At least four Christian priests and nine Sunni Muslim muftis have been murdered in that way in Iran since 2001.

In Pakistan, rival Sunni and Shiite groups have made a habit of sending cut-off heads of each other's activists by special delivery. By one estimate, over 400 heads have been chopped off and mailed since 1990.

Chopping heads is also practiced by Muslim militants on the Indonesian island of Borneo as a means of driving the Christian majority out. It has been effective in forcing nearly half of the island's Christians packing.

At one point in the 1980s, the Abu-Sayyaf Islamist group in Mindanao, The Philippines, used the tactic of severing heads as a means of terrorizing the security forces.

Americans should also remember Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was brutally murdered in the same way in Pakistan over two years ago.

Although head-chopping is now seen as a mode of communication between Islamist militants and the Western world, the overwhelming victims have been Muslims.

Mankind has a natural propensity to become used to the worst atrocities and factor in the cruelest facts of life. But the sight of a severed head will continue to shock even the most blasé of the cynics. This is why those who are defying the whole of humanity in this war on terrorism are certain to continue to employ people like Momo le Nain.

A good book that illustrates the myth of Islam living peacefully with Christians and Jews is "From Time Immemorial" by Joan Peters. I am half way through it at the moment. Basically the Christian and Jewish communities were peaceful so long as the shut up and said nothing. They lived under sufferance and under the whim of which ever Muslim was in power at the time. When there was a change in ruler there tended to be a fresh persecution. Some rulers were kinder than others but only in relation to the excess of the worse rulers!

The subjugated communities were also economically usefully they were a source of wealth you could tax and confiscate from them all you wanted. They also were political scapegoats, any time a Muslim wanted someone to blame there were the Christians and the Jews.

The ordinary Muslim always had a underlying hatred of the Jews in particular.

Living in peace with your Muslim rulers is just a form of slavery. Sometimes you might get a kind Muslim slave owner but you were still a slave.

The inherent problem is that one person says Islam teaches peace and 1.5 Million Islamic teachers teach that it means Global conquest.

To make understanding it easier; the common patters is that the person saying it means peace is rarely Islamic and never saying it to Islamics, but to the intended targets of Islam. If you really want to know what Islam means, read what Islamics say to Islamics, not what anyone says it means to Infidels.

As Islam teaches that lying is fine if it gains what you cannot get by other means, any thing said by a Moslem is suspect, as their word is worthless if they have anything to gain.

Like Mohammad Ata said on the plane before it flew into the World Trade Center, "Nobody move and everything will be ok". He lied. And so do all those who say Islam is peaceful. Tell that to the familys of the childs birthday party at the pizza parlor Sabbaros. You can not move against Islam and call it peaceful all you want, and you will still end up scraping your family members off of the walls.

15
posted on 06/19/2004 2:56:41 AM PDT
by American in Israel
(A wise man's heart directs him to the right, but the foolish mans heart directs him toward the left.)

Any one searching for true Islam and having trouble finding it missed a representation of it when Berg was beheaded. After Mr. Johnson's murder, anyone not grasping the Truth of Islam is never going to find it.

Is BS. So called 'Professors' of Middle Eastern Studies on US campus collect money for terrorists. OSB had 300 + million dollars. The 19 Saudi who carried out the 9/11 atrocity were educated men with college degrees. Zarqwari is/was a medical practitioner. Islam is a cult, it's hero a 'prophet' who was a warlord, a pirate, a rapist, a mass murderer. No verse in the koran as 'revealed' to this psychopath (who, from ancient arabic sources, has been confirmed to have suffered from epilepsy and numerous schiziod episodes) can be understood without reading this insane evil creature's biography. Each step he took that made him more powerful, was accompanied by a 'revelation' from the mouth of allah...through the intermediary of the Archangel Gabriel...how convenient, the 'angel' showed up just when he was needed...and when he didn't, well, the 'prophet' simply 'recited' what suited the occasion. The muslim must take the entire book as holy, word for word the word of allah...and the 'prophet' is considered to be a 'divine and sinless man'... Believe nothing. All muslims are not terrorists, but we all know every terrorist is a muslim. Read the biography THE LIFE OF MUHAMMAD. Published in 1913 - profoundly well researched, the work of an eminent historian. And it hasn't been tampered with. Understand the 'prophet' and understand islam. Click on Fred Nerks for a Free Download.

Exactly right, if they'd get their heads out of the sand they will see that they are witnessing the "true" Islam. They need to read reliable history instead of PC revisions and throw away their hippie rose-colored glasses.

The "fruit of the vine" is always a good measure of things. Has anyone seen a denunciation of these murders by Islamic "clerics" yet? Hmmmmmmmm??

RB

22
posted on 06/19/2004 7:14:31 AM PDT
by brushcop
(Dad of an Army Infantryman and busy prayer life...)

FBD, thanks for getting all those quotes. 2 questions, tho'. 1) Could they be taken out of context? (I know how this question sounds, but I know as a believer in the Bible that people can lift a verse out of context and the verse sounds horrible, especially if it's taken out of its historical context.) 2) What about the Moslem people I rub elbows with as I move around my city that show no signs of being "at war" with me or anyone around me. Why are there so many Moslems that live in peace with us and blend right in (well, except for their garb maybe) with American society? Are they ignorant that they are supposed to hate me and snuff me out?

As I talk to people about current events and Islam comes up, I'm confronted with questions like the ones I've posed here. So I'm playing the part of devil's advocate here.

25
posted on 06/19/2004 10:23:19 AM PDT
by Mockingbird For Short
("When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?" St. Luke 18:8)

Concerning your post on head chopping--- Moslems are prohibited from murdering other moslems, or at least banned from "heaven" if they do. Like, even the man they beheaded yesterday was supposedly protected by his citizenship status in Saudi Arabia--- (I heard this on Fox News) that any moslem who kills someone living in Saudi Arabia will not go to "heaven" when he himself dies. Why would they disregard this "rule" of Islam? Is it because at this point in their careers as warrior-types, they don't really "give a damn" about the rules of Islam?

26
posted on 06/19/2004 10:35:39 AM PDT
by Mockingbird For Short
("When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?" St. Luke 18:8)

Good questions. >"(1) Could they be taken out of context? (I know how this question sounds, but I know as a believer in the Bible that people can lift a verse out of context and the verse sounds horrible, especially if it's taken out of its historical context."<

- My understanding is that there are different translations of his words, as Muhammad was illiterate, so his followers took dictation. His name is even spelled differantly, sometimes called "Ahmed", I believe.

Also, is that there are 4 different teachings, or sects. The most dangerous are those that are in the Muslim Brotherhood, started by al Banna in Egypt, in 1929. There is an estimated 3% of the Muslim population (30,000,000) that are in radical sects, (maybe more)

Obviously, not all Muslims are terrorists, and all terrorists aren't Muslims.

But to deny that there isn't an Islamic component to Islamic terrorism, is like denying that 1945 Nazis and Germans didn't have a connection.

>"Why are there so many Moslems that live in peace with us and blend right in (well, except for their garb maybe) with American society? Are they ignorant that they are supposed to hate me and snuff me out?"<

Do a search on an article posted here, called - "The New Face Of Al Qaeda" ; you'll find the answer to that question in that article.

There are different levels of dedication to the religion, just like in Christianity; take Christians who only go to church on Easter and Christmas eve, just as for many Muslims, it's purely a social thing.

But if you've ever read any of Osama bin Laden's writing's (available at Smokinggun.com), you'll see that Osama knows his Koran very well, and quotes from it frequently to justify his murderous behaviour.

But consider the founder, Muhammed killed over seven hundred people. Including some very old people, women, and even children.

To learn more about the founder of Islam; Check this link out: (It documents the life and times of the "Prophet".)

Originally, Muhammad did not preach violence, ...that changed, as he went along, he was rejected as a "prophet", as the tribes did not accept his peaceful teachings; that were mixed with teachings from Christianity, and the Old Testament of the Bible.

..."the real Islam is not what its philosophers and mystics have inferred but what is in the Quran and that is the Islam of the fundamentalist and the terrorist. The real Islam is the Islam that abuses women, that allows men to beat their wives, that imposes penalty tax on the religious minorities, that wants to dominate the world by subduing all the non-Muslims, that calls for Jihad and killing the non-believers until Islam becomes the only dominant religion of the World."

"My rejection of Islam is not based on the bad deeds of the Muslims but on the bad teachings of its holy book and on the bad deeds of its founder. Many cruelties and heinous acts of violence, perpetrated by Muslims throughout the centuries were inspired by the Quran and the Sunnah (the examples of the prophet).

"That is why I condemn ISLAM for the bad things that Muslims do. Any effort to humanize Islam is a waste of time. The obstacle to any reform is Quran.

The enemy is Islam and that is the target of my attacks. I do that, despite knowing that I have become the magnet of the hatred of fanatical Muslims and my own life could be in danger.

Yet I know that by eradicating Islam we can save the world from the dangers of a catastrophe that otherwise is looming over our heads and could cause more disaster than the 1st and 2nd World Wars combined." - DR. Ali Sina: "Why I left Islam" http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/sina/why_i_left_islam.htm

Helpful. Sounds like the "peaceful" Muslims that have blended into American society and the Muslims which Fox News turns to for clarification and interpretation of events in the Middle East-- and even the spokesman for the crown prince of Saudi Arabia-- are what could be called "liberal muslims" or maybe "politically correct muslims" rather than muslims that really live in the spirit of the Koran. They must have a totally different interpretation of the Koran, whereas the militant types interpret it very literally. Sound accurate?

I'll check out The New Face of Islam as soon as I locate it. Thanks again, FBD.

31
posted on 06/19/2004 2:28:02 PM PDT
by Mockingbird For Short
("When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?" St. Luke 18:8)

"There are different levels of dedication to the religion, just like in Christianity; take Christians who only go to church on Easter and Christmas eve, just as for many Muslims, it's purely a social thing. "

I've even heard of Muslim atheists. Sounds like an oxymoron, but these are ones that are 'Muslim' merely by culture.

...Caroline is not alone. Though data is hard to come by, several London mosques have been reporting an increase in the number of converts to Islam, especially since 11 September. Like Caroline, many of these converts are from solid middle-class backgrounds, have successful careers, enjoy active social lives and are fundamentally happy with their lot.... Caroline first started reading about Islam last April. A school friend she has known since she was 11 was marrying a Tunisian, a Muslim. 'My best friend was marrying into a different culture so I wanted to know more about it,' she explains. 'I came at it from more of a cultural perspective than a religious one. But the literature that I picked up just stimulated me. And Islamic teaching made perfect, logical sense. You can approach it intellectually and there are no gaps, no great leaps of faith that you have to make.'

Interesting because the article posted above, "In Search of Authentic Islam", coincidentally ALSO points to the Islam in Tunisia as the "authentic" kind!

35
posted on 06/19/2004 2:56:37 PM PDT
by Mockingbird For Short
("When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?" St. Luke 18:8)

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